How To Find Extra Money To Pay Off Debt

Ways To Make Cash To Pay Off Debt

First Published Date : March 16, 2011 AdawnJournal.com

If you have too much debt and most of your current income is going to paying off that debt, you may be just treading water as you wait for the debt spiral to pull you down. This is why it is so important that you find ways to bring in some extra cash to help you pay off the debt. The more income you have, the quicker the debt disappears.

So, what can you do to make some extra cash?

The first thing you can do is to lower what you spend on everything. This can be done by not eating out and having dinners at home, using coupons, buying store brands and not name brands. In addition, walk as much as you can, take public transportation and telecommute whenever you can. This will save a lot of money on gas. You should also look at possibly moving to a place where you pay less rent, that will save you a lot of money. You can also talk to your bank about refinancing at a lower interest rate. The bank does not want you to go into foreclosure so they will work with you to make sure you can pay your mortgage.

Also, look at cancelling things you don’t need like cable, internet, any needless cell phones and if you have more vehicles than you need, sell them.

Now, when you want to make some extra cash, the first thing you can do is to talk to your boss about getting a raise. This is not always an easy thing to do but an increase in your income of just $100 per month, or $1200 a year can increase the chances of paying off your debt sooner. For example, if you make $40,000 a year and have a $15,000 debt and get a five per cent raise, you will be making an extra $2,000 per year. That means, using just your raise to pay off the debt, you can pay it off in as little as seven and a half years. Of course, finding other ways to increase your income will help pay it off.

One of the less desirable but most effective ways to pay off your debt is to get a second job. A second job, even on the weekends, can make you a lot of extra money. For example, if you work at a full time job during the week, you can get a part time job on the weekend. If that job pays $10 per hour and you work 10 hours a week, you are now pulling in an extra $400 per month and an extra $4,800 per year. On a $15,000 job, you will be able to pay it off in just over three years.

Just doing these simple things, along with holding garage sales and selling what you don’t need, can result in you paying off a debt in as little as one year. It can be just that easy.

NB – Figures shown above are for illustration purposes only and may not be accurate.

Should You Rely Only On Your Pension?

Relying  Only On Your Pension

First Published Date : March 20, 2011 ADawnJournal.com

Many retirees, along with saving a bit of money, rely heavily on their pension fund to finance them during their golden years. However, is this really a good idea? If the recession has taught us anything it is that pensions are not always a safe. Many investments were made, with allegations of fraud, which caused pensions across the United States to be completely lost.

This should show you that pension plans are not always safe and you should look at finding alternatives to making sure you have enough money when you retire. Do you really want to put all your eggs in one basket with your retirement? No you don’t. What should you do to ensure you don’t just rely on your pension?

The first thing you should do is start saving from a very early age. If you start saving when you are 20, then you can have a lot of money. Save $2,000 every year from the age of 20 to 65, you will have saved $90,000 easily. That is if you never add anything else to your savings. If you increase the amount you save every single year by 10 per cent, you can end up saving a lot of money.

The next thing you can do is to make your own investment portfolio. Do not rely just on your pension fund portfolio because you really don’t have much of a choice about what it is invested in. Before the financial crisis, pension funds only invested in AAA rated stocks, which were considered very safe. Turns out, many bad investments got AAA ratings and when everything collapsed, many lost their entire pensions. So, you should make your own investments because you have control. You can ask questions, you can make the decisions and you can ensure what you invest in is safe. Having an investment portfolio and a pension portfolio is not out of the ordinary. It is quite common and many who did this ended up weathering through the financial crisis much easier than others.

As you get closer to retirement, begin to cut your expenses as well. Sell that other car, pay off your mortgage early, sell anything you don’t need. Doing that can free up some extra cash, even thousands of dollars worth, that you can put in your retirement fund.

When you retire, you will also find that you suddenly have a lot of time on your hands. You can use that time to your advantage by pursuing hobbies that will make you money. If you are good at leatherwork, make some products that you can sell at farmer’s markets. If you are good at painting, make it a hobby that can bring in money for you. In the years leading up to your retirement, practice your hobby so you can hit the ground running once you retire.

If you are going to rely on your pension fund only, you are taking a big risk. This is why you should always have some backup plans in case you suddenly find your pension is gone one day.

Global X S&P/TSX Venture 30 Canada ETF: First Global ETF Targeting Canadian Emerging Companies

Global X Funds Launches Canadian Junior Mining and Exploration Companies ETF on NYSE Arca Exchange

First Published Date: March 24, 2011 ADawnJournal.com

In these times of worrying investments, many investors want to go with something that is a bit safer. Hence the purpose of exchange-traded funds, which do not try and beat the stock market, which many will tell you is impossible, but only to replicate it. With an exchange traded fund, or ETF, you are trading based on an exchange, rather than individual stocks. This then allows you more security because not all your eggs are in one basket and you can therefore ensure you are okay if the market goes down.

Recently it was announced that Global X S&P/TSX Venture 30 Canada ETF was launched and it focuses on one of the strongest areas of the Canadian economy; energy and commodities. This ETF is split between materials and energy sectors, with slightly more material stocks in it than energy. This gives you a good mix in case one of the sectors goes down. Some of the main stocks on this ETF include Atac Resources, Rainy River Resources and Canacol Energy.

Of course, that is not all the ETFs you can choose from in Canada. One of the most well-known and used is the iShares MSCI Canada ETF. This ETF covers more range than the other ETF mentioned here. ECW, as it is called on the trading floor, has half of its portfolio made up of material and energy stocks, The rest of the portfolio is mostly made up of financial stocks. This is important because it gives you three different sectors that you can work with in order to ensure you get the most diversified portfolio that you can. The main stocks on ECW are Suncor Energy and Canadian Natural Resources.

When you are trading on the market, you want to ensure that you have a bit of relative safety so that you do not lose everything that you have. Many investors put their hopes on risky stocks and ending up losing everything during the financial crisis. If you are in for the long haul and would like to have a few stocks to diversify, then you can look at these ETFs. ETFs are known for providing better level of safely than picking individual stocks. With ETFs, you can invest in specific sectors or even stocks that only match your morale code. For example, you can choose ETFs that only have stocks from companies with good employee records and others that are not related to weapons or tobacco.

If you like to invest in Canadian companies, then you may want to look at investing in these ETFs, which are working on stocks that are in the highly profitable energy and manufacturing industries. In the case of the energy industry, it was one of the few industries in Canada to continue to do well despite the financial meltdown.

If you are thinking of investing with ETFs, then these two ETFs are the ones you can put in your research list Don’t forget to do your research making any financial decisions, and make sure to find the product that best suits your needs.

Link: Global X Funds

The Importing and Exporting of China

China Import and Export

First Published Date : March 31, 2011 ADawnJournal.com

China is the second largest economy on the planet and that has a lot to do with its surplus workforce and high amount of natural resources. Currently, China is also one of the world’s largest importers and exporters, something that is helping to fuel the country into the future.

In 1998, China had a global trade of $324 billion and that same year, China reduced its import tariffs from 35 per cent to 23 per cent and then again to 17 per cent. This allowed China to join the World Trade Organization, which has completely changed the country. Only 10 years after making those changes, China now has a global trade value of $2.4 trillion. It took six years (1988 to 1996) to go from $100 billion to $200 billion in global trade, and only seven years to go from $200 billion to $500 billion. From there, it was only three years before China passed the $1 trillion mark.

Currently, China imports mostly capital goods and industrial supplies, most of which are high-technology equipment and most of those come from Japan and the United States.

Due to the high amount of surplus workforce in China, about 80 per cent of the country’s exports are manufactured goods, and most of these are textiles and electronic equipments, along with chemicals and agricultural products.

To attest to the high amount of exporting and importing going on in China, of the five busiest ports on the planet, China has three.

The United States is one of the largest trading partners of China, with the trade surplus reaching over $200 billion. A big reason for this is because of Wal-Mart, which is the seventh largest trading partner with China, ahead of the United Kingdom.

China also trades a great deal with Russia, amounting to over $40 billion. In the past few years, the exports of machinery and electronic goods to Russia has grown immensely, as has its exports of high-tech products. Russia is also the eighth largest trading partner with China, and China is Russia’s fourth-largest trading partner. China mainly gets energy such as oil from Russia, with most of it coming from train, or through pipelines like the proposed Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline.

Within China, there is the China Council For The Promotion of International Trade, which helps to promote China’s international economic and commercial interests. The group does this by developing co-operation among businesses and exchanges with countries around the planet. The group also compiles data, works with diplomatic agencies and is active to ensure that there are no trade issues.

China is a growing nation and one that will soon be the largest economy on the planet. As time goes on, its trade with other growing superpowers will increase, especially India, Russia, Brazil and the European Union. At the same time, trade with the United States may fall as the economy of the United States struggles to remain a dominant power within the international community.

Warren Buffet–The World’s Most Successful Investor

The Sage of Omaha

First Published Date : April 6, 2011 ADawnJournal.com

He is considered to be the greatest investor in history and is usually ranked as one of the richest men on the planet. He is Warren Buffett and he has become a legendary figure in the investment world.

Born Aug. 30, 1930, Buffett is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and is the third wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of about $50 billion. While Buffett is known for his immense fortune, he is also known for giving away money and has announced that upon his death, he will give away 99 per cent of his fortune to charities, including the Gates Foundation, which is the charity of another very wealthy man; Bill Gates.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Buffett was educated at Rose Hill Elementary School until his father was elected to Congress in 1942. At this point, Buffett moved to Washington with his family and attended Woodrow Wilson High School.

One of the most interesting aspects about Buffett was his keen business sense, even from a young age. He had an understanding of how to make money and he began making money as a child when he was selling chewing gum, magazines and Coca-Cola door-to-door. He also knew how to save money and began putting money away for a rainy day.

At the age of 14, Buffett had filed his first tax routine and even used his bicycle as a $35 deduction because he used it on his paper route.

At the age of 15, he bought a pinball machine for $25 and put it in a barber shop. Only a few months later, he had several pinball machines in many different shops across the city. This was just the beginning of what would be a legendary business career.

As a child, Buffett spent time in a stock brokerage that was near his father’s company and when he was 10 he went to the New York Stock Exchange. At the age of 11, he had three shares in Cities Service.

By the time he was out of college (University of Pennsylvania), Buffett had $90,000 in savings thanks to sound business investments and a good sense of the stock market.

He graduated with a degree in Business Administration and then enrolled in Columbia Business School because two of his financial heroes taught there. From there, he received a Masters in Economics and then went to the New York Institute of Finance.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Buffett worked as an investment salesman and securities analyst and in 1970 he became a general partner at Berkshire Hathaway, where he is now the CEO.

In the 1952, he married Susan Thompson and his first child, Susan Alice Buffett was born the following year.

Only a few years later, he bought a five-bedroom house in Omaha for $31,500. The fact that he still lives there shows the incredible character of Buffett who could afford his own country, but chooses to live in a regular home, in a regular neighborhood.

Due to all his partnerships in various companies, by 1962, Buffett was a millionaire with a fortune over $7.1 million by 1962. That same year, he merged all the partnerships into one and bought Berkshire Hathaway

Throughout the 1950s, Buffett began to acquire stocks in media including the Washington Post and ABC.

From 1960, when he became a millionaire, to 1990, the fortune of Buffett continued to grow thanks to excellent investing and shrewd business deals that led him as a controlling shareholder in many large companies. Buffett became a billionaire on May 29, 1990 and only 12 years later he was worth $11 billion. At this time, he announced that 85 per cent of his Berkshire holdings would be given away over time, to five foundations. The largest donation was to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In 2008, Buffett was on top of the world, literally. It was that year that he reached $62 billion in net worth, making him the richest man in the world and pushing Bill Gates off the top of the list, where he had been for 13 consecutive years. The next year, Gates was again the richest man in the world but Buffet was second.

One reason for the drop was the loss of $25 billion in one year by Buffett due to the financial meltdown and crisis of 2008 to 2009.

Even with the financial meltdown, Buffett bought General Electric preferred stock, netting him a good increase in net worth.

Buffett separated from his wife in 1977 but remained legally married to her until 2004 when she passed away. His daughter currently does charity work through her own foundation. In 2006, Buffett married his long-time partner Astrid Menks, who was 60 years old at the time and had been introduced to Buffett by Buffett’s wife. Buffet, his partner and his wife were very close and all remained friends for several years.

Unlike many other CEOs, Buffett does not make millions in salary, but instead brings home only $100,000 in salary, making all his money from investments.

Buffett is also a big fan of the game bridge and often plays it with Bill Gates. He is also a fan of Nebraska football and can be seen in the stands whenever he has time to attend a game.

Another interesting fact about Buffett is that he does not carry a cell phone, nor have a computer and he drives his own car, rather than have someone drive him where he has to go.

Naturally, a great deal of recognition has come to Buffett. He was named the top money manager of the 20th century by the Carson Group, as one of the most 100 influential individuals in the world in 2007 according to Time Magazine and he has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. ‘

An mild-mannered man, Buffett is truly unique in the world of business and a fascinating person to learn the world of investing from.